Jack-of-all trades Jay Miller writes about boxing, high school sports and music. A native of West Bridgewater, he was captain of his high school track team. He played football at Stonehill College. He also played guitar, bass, sax, bongos and drums.
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Jack-of-all trades Jay Miller writes about boxing, high school sports and music. A native of West Bridgewater, he was captain of his high school track team. He played football at Stonehill College. He also played guitar, bass, sax, bongos and drums. He and a friend had a duo, covering Dylan and Creedence. While in grad school at Boston University, he spent many free afternoons at Fenway Park. He covered Marvin Hagler from bouts at Brockton High to Las Vegas, has written for The Ring, Fight Fax and Boxing Illustrated. He began reviewing music for The Patriot Ledger in 1986, along with all kinds of sports. He's been on the PawSox beat since about 1998. He once met Bo Diddley at the old K-K-K-Katies in Kenmore Square, and still wonders whatever happened to The Ultimate Spinach.

It was, by any measure, a triumphant musical homecoming for Lexington native Matt Nathanson, who headlined the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion in Boston Saturday night before 4500 giddy fans. But with Gavin DeGraw as a co-headliner, it was also a pretty terrific night for all pop fans of a romantic bent.

Nathanson, who really didn't come into his own musically until he went to Pitzer College in Claremont, California, and began writing and performing his folk-rock music in earnest, salted Saturday's show with numerous local references that let the crowd know he is truly a Beantown area native. Whether it was greeting the throng with "Can I call you HarborLights?" or assuring fans his new home is San Francisco because "that's the Boston of California," or introducing a solo acoustic number that would be "like the olden days, at the Kendall Cafe," Nathanson struck just the right tone for a returning homeboy.

We first stumbled upon Nathanson about a decade ago, around the time of his 2003 album "Beneath the Fireworks," when on a stroll about Providence looking for music, we noticed a crowd of about 60 college age girls lined up outside The Call. Now, originally as The Last Call, that club had been a blues joint frequented by bikers, and while it became more refined and more of a rock club as The Call, it was still your typical roadhouse/rock club. But that amount of young women was unusual, so we investigated, and found the place packed, with about three-quarters of the audience young and female, and all of them just about swooning over the self-effacing young fellow onstage singing his appealingly detailed folk-rock and pop tunes.

Fast forward to the present day, and Nathanson has built a prodigious career over the course of eight studio albums, a couple of live CDs, and relentless touring. If he hasn't conquered the charts like some mega-stars, he has still crafted a very rewarding career with many heights. He did one of those coveted Live From Darryl's House shows with Darryl Hall (March 2009), placed his song "Faster" on The Bachelor tv show, performed on Jay Leno's Tonight show (July 2013), and had his cover of the old hit "Laid" pop up on the soundtrack to the movie "American Wedding."

But the core of Nathanson's success has always been his live shows, and it is no wonder because he is a fabulous showman, hammy in a goofball sort of way. Chiding one front row fan who was reluctant to join the dance-mania of one song, Nathanson advised the fellow "this is a Matt Nathanson show--there's no such thing as cool here.."

Nathanson's songs are mostly about love and relationships, but he frames them as stories, vignettes delivered with intelligence and an even hand, and frequent self-deprecating humor. The end result is that Nathanson achieves that rare effect a very few movie stars (Burt Reynolds, Kevin Costner, Ben Affleck for example) have; women want to date him, and guys want to hang out with him.† As Saturday night in Boston proved, hanging out with Nathanson is a good time.

Nathanson and his quartet crammed fifteen songs, more or less, depending on how you count the snippets they often played within other tunes, into their 80-minute set. Musically the songs ranged from quiet and folkie, to roaring heartland rock, and the foursome was magnificent throughout, led by guitarist Aaron Tapp, another Lexington native Nathanson met when both worked in the kitchen of the Bel Canto restaurant. Nathanson and Tapp on electric guitars gave "Annie's Always Waiting (For The Next One to Leave)" a real mainstream rock thrust early in the set, and how can you resist a song with lines like "she had a master's degree in disappointment.."

A Nathanson chestnut, "Car Crash" was delivered as a surging folk-rocker, where the singer's plaintive tone makes it palpable that when he says "I want to feel the car crash" he's really yearning to feel anything real and meaningful. Nathanson wrote "Run" with the country band Sugarland, and while that song was recorded as a duet with Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland, Nathanson's solo take was just as sensually smoldering, definitely an R-rated bit of country-rock.

That tune also led to a funny moment, as Nathanson wondered if there were any kids too young to hear bad words present. When a ten-year old named Sidney was pointed out about ten rows back, the singer explained to the boy that "Run" was really about a situation akin to one-on-one basketball. Sidney's dad had been holding a "I (heart) Gavin DeGraw" poster, and Nathanson had some fun with that, advising Sidney to listen carefully to the song, "I know you're not a fan of this music yet, because your father hasn't been doing his job, but we'll help you both out." Nathanson then shrugged off the navy blue tour tee shirt he'd been wearing (revealing a black tee underneath) and tossed it out to Sidney as a souvenir.

Nathanson used a very cool falsetto to enhance the soulful feel of "Mission Bells," a lost-love tune where he admits "I'm the last of the worst pretenders." But then "Room at the End of the World" was simply a galvanizing heartland rocker. of course Nathanson had to have some fun with it, so a mid-song segment had him assuring the crowd "everyone has a little Whitney Houston in them, ready to bust out," before leading a sing-and-dance-along to Houston's signature hit "I Want to Dance With Somebody."

Nathanson's most recent single is "Kinks Shirt," a tune he explained was a product of just seeing someone and imagining you had an affair. It was, he said,† "for all those people who fall in love at the Stop & Shop, or the Stah Mahket, or even Demoulas' Market Basket!" That last line prompted a big cheer, before Nathanson launched the folk-rocking tune itself, a three-minute pop gem that was performed as video screens showed vintage 45 records, and 1950's beach movies.† Continuing that mood of wackiness, the band did a loose-limbed cover of "Dirty Water," before kicking off their cover of "Laid."

Nathanson's solo turn on "Suspended" was a reminder of how evocative he can be when he plays it straight. But then the band returned, with opener Andrew McMahon for a torrid sprint through Tom Petty's "American Girl."† Nathanson told the crowd "This is a big day for Andrew, he's nine years cancer-free. He's not only a great guy, he's also my hero." McMahon swapped vocals with Nathanson on the old chestnut, and he probably sounded more like Petty than Petty does.

The homestretch featured a romp through the pulsating "(You Make My Heart Beat) Faster" with a mid-song insert of George Michaels' "Faith."† The new song "Headphones" was a midtempo ballad about how music can make life easier. And the infectious love plea "Come On get Higher" ended the night with a flourish.

On any other night, Gavin DeGraw's 75-minute set would've been the highlight. The singer-songwriter from the Catskills area of upstate New York blends soul, folk and pop rhythms as well as anyone ever has. Just when you thought his phrasing and footwork on the throbbing dance-club epic "Radiation" were reminiscent of Michael Jackson's best, he and his quintet kicked into a delightful cover of Hall and Oates' "Rich Girl," and you realized how well he evokes that sound.

For a couple generations raised on American Idol type shows, where every song becomes an operatic workout with big dynamic swings, designed to showcase vocal range and power, DeGraw is the gold standard, a singer of dazzling range and potency.† If his songs don't have quite the down-to-earth quality of Nathanson's, they are accessible, widely appealing, and in the grand tradition of American pop music. Heck, some of these tunes are just ready-made for a modern Broadway show to be written around them.

DeGraw easily handled U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name" in a moving rendition, then seamlessly moved into his own buoyant "Everything Will Change." DeGraw's band, led by guitarist Billy Norris, uncorked a rollicking rocker on his "In Love With A Girl." DeGraw's "Finest Hours" morphed from a wistful ballad into a gritty midtempo rocker. And his "I Don't Want to be" was such an infectious delight, with stop-time breaks enhancing its tension-and-release, that an encore segment was pre-ordained.

DeGraw's three song encore probably peaked with his new single, the dance-party special "Fire," but the thumping ballad "Not Over You, " focused on a hypnotic piano figure, was probably a better microcosm of his songwriting talents.